Outdoor Photogrpahy – Canan Photographichttps://blog.cananphoto.com
Through The Lens - Photography BlogTue, 17 Apr 2018 13:48:47 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8145145136Authentically Yours – A Promotional Video for Washington County, MDhttps://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/09/16/authenticly-yours-a-promotional-video-for-washington-county-md/
https://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/09/16/authenticly-yours-a-promotional-video-for-washington-county-md/#respondSat, 16 Sep 2017 16:59:19 +0000http://blog.cananphoto.com/?p=384I created this video commissioned by Visit Hagerstown, Washington County, Maryland as part of their tourism promotional material. I filmed all over Washington County for 15 months. Documenting authentic connections between people and the places, highlighting accessible itineraries for individuals, groups, and families while attempting to showcase the inherent beauty of the many natural areas and real people of Washington County, Maryland.
The video “Authentically Yours” highlights an authentic connection between visitors, destinations, and the people who make Washington County the cultural experience that it is!
It was a joy and a challenge to make a video that promotes responsible tourism, from a documentary point of view, with the inclusion of local people and wildlife as the stars!
Just 60 miles from D.C. and Baltimore, the combinations of experiences that one can have in a day trip are nearly endless. Even better stay the weekend or a week and deepen the experience you have and the memories you create. Learn more about Washington County and what it has to offer here at www.visithagerstown.com
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj1Yy-akhCc[/embedyt]
]]>https://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/09/16/authenticly-yours-a-promotional-video-for-washington-county-md/feed/0384Beneath The Busy Surface Mindhttps://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/07/24/this-moment-now/
https://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/07/24/this-moment-now/#respondMon, 24 Jul 2017 12:52:40 +0000http://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/07/24/this-moment-now/Sunset over Beaver Pond, Thornhurst, PA photograph by John Canan May 2017.

That day I saw beneath dark clouds

the passing light over the water

and I heard the voice of the world speak out,

I knew then, as I had before

life is no passing memory of what has been

nor the remaining pages in a great book

waiting to be read.

-from the poem Opening of Eyes by David Whyte in Songs for Coming Home

Making this photo reminded me to my core that this is it. Every moment new, fresh, never before and never again – yet so much of it I trade for the future or squander on futile attempts to rewrite the past.

This day. This moment this is it. This is all there ever was or will ever be. Not then or way back when. Just now. Be with yourself the parts you cover over or try to brush past. Be with yourself as if this moment mattered as if it were your last. -jc

What is it that calls to you, that calls to you from within your being? What demands your attention so fiercely that you go to all lengths to avoid it? What speaks so softly, so swiftly to your soul that just listening brings you to your edge and your eyes begin to weep? This is where you should put your days efforts. This is your soulcraft!

The tree doesn’t question who will see it bloom or share in delight with its fruit. The strawberry perched on the last thread of its plant doesn’t silently beg – pick me oh someone pick me. They face the same light of day as any of us. They too face the setting sun – until they are done.

THE FOURTH SIGN OF THE ZODIAC

I know, you never intended to be in this world.But you’re in it all the same.So why not get started immediately.I mean, belonging to it.There is so much to admire, to weep over.And to write music or poems about.Bless the feet that take you to and fro.Bless the eyes and the listening ears.Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.Bless touching.You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.Or not.I am speaking from the fortunate platformof many years,none of which, I think, I ever wasted.Do you need a prod?Do you need a little darkness to get you going?Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,and remind you of Keats,so single of purpose and thinking, for a while, he had a lifetime.
-From THE FOURTH SIGN OF THE ZODIAC – by Mary Oliver

]]>https://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/07/16/lost-until-found/feed/0352Original Instructions https://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/04/28/original-instructions/
https://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/04/28/original-instructions/#respondFri, 28 Apr 2017 20:06:16 +0000http://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/04/28/original-instructions/Springtime – a surge of life force awakens from dormancy full of inspiration hope and energy. The plants and the trees understand and work with the cycle of nature. They do not try to make spring forever time. And they have a process they follow as part of the cycle – it’s what comes next; fruits of their labor. I think I contrary to the natural flow try to jump from spring to fruit. Life certainly goes together better when we follow the instructions. #noshortcuts #originalinstructions #spring #wv #mountainculture
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https://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/04/28/moments-fleeting-and-unknown/#respondFri, 28 Apr 2017 19:35:35 +0000http://blog.cananphoto.com/?p=320This ever fleeting moment – a felt sense of eternity. And Forever-ness the nemosis of Now; a tonic we use to numb the mind from the burns from the comet – time. Yet it is the very constancy of change that gives the flickers that dance across the night sky of our striatum it’s sweet sweet taste.
Our clinging to time’s vapors – the ideas of the moments; it is this that produces the dredge felt within as moments recognized and labeled move out of reach like a kite slipping away with the wind.
Clutching thoughts is like clawing at the air. False self points to memory and calls this that. The notion of said I attempts to trick the heart into ignoring what it knows. And trading Truth for a magician’s tale of security.
Our belabored hands worn and dusty from the trail. And yet our own heart so near and yet unknown. And it is often the Unknown we fear the most. #momentsoftime #beherenow #time #awareness #embodiment #now
]]>https://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/04/28/moments-fleeting-and-unknown/feed/0320An Antidote for the Burdened Hearthttps://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/04/13/an-antidote-a-burdened-heart/
https://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/04/13/an-antidote-a-burdened-heart/#respondThu, 13 Apr 2017 22:14:33 +0000http://blog.cananphoto.com/?p=310Nature has; Her very Essence is the antidote for that sort of dull burden that accompanies the mind when it is preoccupied with the artificial in its attempt to resist the mundane.
Tintern Abbey
Though absent long,
These forms of beauty have not been to me,
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet [.]
~ William Wordsworth
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https://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/04/02/extraordinary-clarity/#respondMon, 03 Apr 2017 00:35:11 +0000http://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/04/02/extraordinary-clarity/
I came to know my father better in his death than I had in life.
Sad though I am
His Voice still now like the fog wrapped around the pine at the side of the house.
His body a constant spring of mouse trap pains -no more
His love of life bigger than this world always larger than the body he inhabited
Sometimes, what is so close so near and so alike
In the light of similarity It’s almost impossible to see until the flame goes out
]]>https://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/04/02/extraordinary-clarity/feed/0304When You Are Oldhttps://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/04/02/when-you-are-old/
https://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/04/02/when-you-are-old/#respondMon, 03 Apr 2017 00:17:46 +0000http://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/04/02/when-you-are-old/Carol Silva and son. Watertown, NJ
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
by William Butler Yeats
The Love of a mother and a son.
]]>https://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/04/02/when-you-are-old/feed/030139.8017785 -74.295403239.8017785-74.2954032Offset offering Time-stoping Moments in Photographs of the Every Changing Potomac Riverhttps://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/03/15/offset-offering-time-stoping-moments-in-photographs-of-the-every-changing-potomac-river/
https://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/03/15/offset-offering-time-stoping-moments-in-photographs-of-the-every-changing-potomac-river/#respondWed, 15 Mar 2017 22:58:30 +0000http://blog.cananphoto.com/?p=276River Edge by John Canan
The time stoping moments in beautiful photographs of the every changing Potomac River is now being offered for purchase through the Offset Collection. Offset offers authentic imagery by award-winning artists.

More about Offset:Offset artists are visual storytellers with a deep passion for their craft. Images in the Offset collection are gathered from world-class and award-winning assignment photographers, illustrators, and agencies, with a focus on unique content with narrative, authentic, and sophisticated qualities. https://www.offset.com
]]>https://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/03/15/offset-offering-time-stoping-moments-in-photographs-of-the-every-changing-potomac-river/feed/0276An End A Beginning- A Beginning an Endhttps://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/03/13/233/
https://blog.cananphoto.com/2017/03/13/233/#respondMon, 13 Mar 2017 12:30:49 +0000http://blog.cananphoto.com/?p=233Castle ruins near County Clare, IE
Thirty years ago today I took up the practice of sobriety. A road that continually empties and refills from Grace. All of which seems to work best when I interfere the least.
Deserted like the wharves at dawn.
It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!
Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.
Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.
In you the wars and the flights accumulated.
From you the wings of the song birds rose.
You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!
It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.
The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.
~Pablo Neruda from A Song of Despair
Every time I feel smashed down, pulverized, or my sense of self seems demolished, some new set of seeds sprout and take root while my eyes shaded in my own darkness. These castle ruins that I photographed in western Ireland had seen the rise and fall of many attempts of humans to achieve power, security, and a clan’s juxtaposition over others living on this land.
In the end, the stones carefully cut and laid by Masons are now the roost of the falcons. The walls made strong to turn the enemy away now serve the ivy well reaches for the sunlight.
All of our hustling, shuffling, and fret really never amount to anything. No empire withstands wind rain and the passing of seasons. Thousands of years of humankind’s ignorant domination on the land can be erased in the blink of the earth’s eye.
How tiny are then are we in the grand scheme of events on life’s timeline? Into the woes of any to killer day even be a blip on the radar screen? And what of the kindness of the gardeners hand? Is this not being courage me for life to carry on?
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